| 23 - 30 Oct: Hyderabad, Shiridi |
 Amalananda parted company with the group on 23rd to head back to Hyderabad. Swamiji, Amma and the rest went to Nainital, and from there went to Delhi. Greg, Carla and Avinash continued separately on the rest of their India trip. On 26th, Swamiji, Amma and Raghudasa flew from Delhi to Hyderabad where Amalananda received them. One 27th, we all went to the Pratyangira Temple in Hyderabad. It was a divine arrangement that the Shankaracharya of Kutralam Ashram (in Tamilnadu), Jagadguru Sri Siddeshwarananda Bharati Swami was present in the Temple. Swamiji and Amma had planned to visit Kutralam, to pay respects to Mouna Swamigal, who had left his body in 1918, but had been guiding them astrally. They had wanted to spend time with Sri Siddeshwarananda Bharati Swami, and there he was, in this temple ! It turned out that he was not going to be present in the Kutralam ashram during the time Swamiji and Amma were planning to go. All of us could not help but feel that this meeting indeed  has been arranged by the Divine. Speaking softly and poetically, the Sankaracharya Swamiji offered his blessings to Amma and Swamiji. It felt the blessings were coming directly from Mouna Swamigal himself. He offered Amma and Swamiji to go to the Kutralam ashram even in his absence, and to spend time there at Mouna Swamigal's samadhi. It was truely a blessing to be in the presence of Sri Siddeshwarananda Bharati Swami. Later in the day, Swamiji and Amma performed a homa puja consecrating the site on which Amalananda intends to construct a house. The next day, on 28th, we all started from Hyderabad to Shiridi. It was a 12-hour night bus journey, in a comfortable bus. We reached Shiridi on 29th morning. Shiridi is a temple town in the state of Maharashtra, in central India. It is the place where the famous saint Shiridi Sai Baba lived and left his body in 1918. Millions of people come to this place every year to visit his samadhi. We went to have darshan of his samadhi place in the morning. The place was overflowing with devotees, we waited in the queue for nearly two hours before we could get to the samadhi place. There were constant chants and hails to Sai Baba. Swamiji and Amma had visited Shiridi in 2005. They observed that the place has changed very much since they last visited, it is now much more commercial and there are lot more people visiting. After we spent some more time around the temple, we retired to the hotel room. On 29th, Swamiji, Amma and Raghudasa boarded a train to the south Indian city of Bangalore, while Amalananda boarded a separate train to Hyderabad, to focus on the house construction. From this point onwards, it would be mostly Swamiji, Amma and Raghudasa who would be travelling in South India, with Amalananda joining them where possible. |
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